23 KILLED AS THOUSANDS OF BLACKS RIOT IN S.AFRICA

23 killed as Thousands of Blacks Riot in S. Africa

Los Angeles Times

June 17, 1976

In 1976 the South African government mandated the use of the Afrikaans language in schools, sparking student protests that were violently countered by police. To black students, Afrikaans, the language of South Africa's Afrikaners, represented the oppression blacks faced under the white-minority apartheid rule. Riots in the black township of Soweto, described in this Los Angeles Times report, prompted black South Africans in other areas to protest apartheid conditions, eventually resulting in at least 575 deaths.

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Johannesburg —Black South African high school students, protesting mandatory use of the despised Afrikaans language in schools, set off rioting Wednesday that swept through a sprawling black township near Johannesburg. Police said 23 persons were killed and 220 were injured.

The riots were the worst here in 16 years.

Blacks consider Afrikaans, the language of this white-ruled nation's dominant Boers, a symbol of white oppression.

Police shot at thousands of demonstrators, first with tear gas and later with live bullets, but were defied by bands of rioters that roamed the streets into the night, setting fire to buildings and automobiles in Soweto, a segregated township housing about 1 million blacks.

Army units were moved into Soweto and alerted for possible use if the rioting continued.

Police Minister James T. Kruger said the situation was quieting and returning to normal, but the government television reported that new riots flared at night after a brief lull.

Among the casualties were two white motorists dragged from their cars and stoned to death. One of the motorists and one other white killed were reported to be officials of the government bureau administering black affairs.

At least 29 of those injured had bullet wounds, a hospital official said. Four white women welfare workers were wounded when a mob attacked their car.

Rioters hacked two police dogs to death and then burned them.

At least 20 buildings and 40 to 50 autos were set on fire Wednesday night.

Defending the decision of police officers to fire into the crowd of rockthrowing protesters, Kruger said officers “tried tear gas, but in the open, tear gas was not very successful. The police then fired warning shots and this stopped the crowds for a while. But then they came on again.”

Rioting flared when police used tear gas to halt a demonstration protesting the government requirement that blacks be taught half their classes in Afrikaans. The other half are taught in English, which the blacks prefer. English and Afrikaans are South Africa's two official languages.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Language was the issue that lit the fuse, but the riot also reflected discontent over inferior and crowded housing, lack of electricity and other inequalities in the teeming black township about 12 miles outside Johannesburg.

Hundreds of police with guns, dogs, tear gas and helicopters converged during the day trying to herd the rioters onto a hill in Soweto.

A senior police officer told newsmen, “We fired into them. It's no good firing over their heads.”

Estimates of the number of rioters ranged to 10,000, most of them young students. At regular intervals, army Alouette helicopters passed over the hill to dump tear gas.

The riots began as a march by Soweto pupils to the Phefeni secondary school, located atop the hill, to support pupils there who had been boycotting classes for five weeks to protest mandatory use of Afrikaans.

The language, derived from Dutch, is used by South Africa's Boers, who dominate the 4 million-strong white minority that rules over the country's 18 million blacks. The blacks regard English as the language of progress and a link to the outside world.

The march quickly turned violent as pupils began taunting and stoning police, and police loosed a volley of tear gas.

A black reporter on the scene said a white policeman pulled out his revolver and fired. Other police then began shooting.

Source: Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1976.

Dr. Martin Luther King

NB

This piece of work was republished not in order to enhance racism but in other to teach history and just as James Joyce said, ‘History is a nightmare from which am still trying to awake’ maybe these were one of reasons.